whispered, his throat dry. Ambar let the crucifix and its gold chain fall onto his palm. His hand dipped with the weight of it.
The crucifix was magnificent, about two inches high by one wide of solid gold. Each of its cross bars was tipped with three tiny pearls. The Christ figure hung in such a way as to make the arms look upraised in victory, rather than weak with death. His face was pained, His expression sad but accepting. Below His feet was an uncommon skull and crossbones crafted out of ivory. Above His head, the typical inscription, INRI, was engraved on a golden scroll. INRI was the Latin acronym for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, the banner written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek which Pilate ordered placed on Christ’s cross to show his “crime.”
Thaddeus turned over the crucifix. Its back was enameled with primary blues, reds and greens, clearly an Iberian influence. He could make out what looked like a spear, and the words “Lux et Veritas.” “Light and Truth,” he translated from the Latin.
“ My ancestor try his best to keep his vow,” Ambar said. “He travel to Rome and to the Vatican. He is an Arab, and he fight many bandits and hateful people on the way. The Swiss Guards do not let him pass through the gate. They threaten him. He show the Guards the crucifix and the letter. They yell and point to him their swords. They accuse Abd al-Aziz of stealing the letter and crucifix from the priest. One guard go to kill him. Abd al-Aziz fight them. He escapes.”
“ Your ancestor was the one in the Vatican guard’s report I found about an Arab with a stolen crucifix and a letter,” Thaddeus said. “So I was right. He returned here.”
Ambar nodded. “For many years, the letter and crucifix is the burden of my family. We wait all the time for one worthy. Professor Thaddeus, you are that man. The letter and the crucifix are yours now.”
The room spun dizzily around him. “I’ve got to get these to safety or your ancestor’s courage will have been for nothing.” He pushed up on his elbows, only to collapse onto the bed.
Ambar’s hand gripped his shoulder, her craggy fingers surprisingly strong. “I will do it,” she said in English. “I will keep my family vow to Salvatierra to deliver his dying message. Where?”
Blackness flooded towards him. Like Salvatierra, his mission could not end, even if he should die here, alone, so far from home and family. “To my daughter,” he said, “before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER 9
Salvatierra made a quick sign of the cross. They would now reap what they had sown in this new world. It was a world not full of gold, but abundant in a native people that the Spaniards, not the jungle, had forged into savages. These savages formed the human chain ringing the perimeter of the clearing. They tensed when they saw him, crouching, strengthening the links. Each began stomping his bare, calloused feet on the pounded earth in a slow, threatening rhythm, injecting an unholy life into the skeletons marked in blood on their bare, brown skin. But still, he could not keep his gaze from wandering beyond this threat of brutal death, or worse.
For there he saw what he had suffered through days and death to find. A magnificent temple towered above the far side of the clearing. The temple filled the canyon pass, fifty feet wide and one hundred feet high. It was buttressed against the steep canyon walls, its central roof a series of pyramidal steppes. On either side of the temple, trees and vines clung upon a cliff that extended deep into the jungle to his right and left, like a fortress wall built by God. The man they sought, and the Breastplate, waited within that temple.
Young Elias crept to his side. He gripped the blunderbuss, careful to keep it aimed towards the ground. “Is it true, Father Salvatierra, what the stories say, that beyond this temple is the Garden of Eden? Perhaps the Breastplate will show us the way to
The crucifix was magnificent, about two inches high by one wide of solid gold. Each of its cross bars was tipped with three tiny pearls. The Christ figure hung in such a way as to make the arms look upraised in victory, rather than weak with death. His face was pained, His expression sad but accepting. Below His feet was an uncommon skull and crossbones crafted out of ivory. Above His head, the typical inscription, INRI, was engraved on a golden scroll. INRI was the Latin acronym for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, the banner written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek which Pilate ordered placed on Christ’s cross to show his “crime.”
Thaddeus turned over the crucifix. Its back was enameled with primary blues, reds and greens, clearly an Iberian influence. He could make out what looked like a spear, and the words “Lux et Veritas.” “Light and Truth,” he translated from the Latin.
“ My ancestor try his best to keep his vow,” Ambar said. “He travel to Rome and to the Vatican. He is an Arab, and he fight many bandits and hateful people on the way. The Swiss Guards do not let him pass through the gate. They threaten him. He show the Guards the crucifix and the letter. They yell and point to him their swords. They accuse Abd al-Aziz of stealing the letter and crucifix from the priest. One guard go to kill him. Abd al-Aziz fight them. He escapes.”
“ Your ancestor was the one in the Vatican guard’s report I found about an Arab with a stolen crucifix and a letter,” Thaddeus said. “So I was right. He returned here.”
Ambar nodded. “For many years, the letter and crucifix is the burden of my family. We wait all the time for one worthy. Professor Thaddeus, you are that man. The letter and the crucifix are yours now.”
The room spun dizzily around him. “I’ve got to get these to safety or your ancestor’s courage will have been for nothing.” He pushed up on his elbows, only to collapse onto the bed.
Ambar’s hand gripped his shoulder, her craggy fingers surprisingly strong. “I will do it,” she said in English. “I will keep my family vow to Salvatierra to deliver his dying message. Where?”
Blackness flooded towards him. Like Salvatierra, his mission could not end, even if he should die here, alone, so far from home and family. “To my daughter,” he said, “before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER 9
Salvatierra made a quick sign of the cross. They would now reap what they had sown in this new world. It was a world not full of gold, but abundant in a native people that the Spaniards, not the jungle, had forged into savages. These savages formed the human chain ringing the perimeter of the clearing. They tensed when they saw him, crouching, strengthening the links. Each began stomping his bare, calloused feet on the pounded earth in a slow, threatening rhythm, injecting an unholy life into the skeletons marked in blood on their bare, brown skin. But still, he could not keep his gaze from wandering beyond this threat of brutal death, or worse.
For there he saw what he had suffered through days and death to find. A magnificent temple towered above the far side of the clearing. The temple filled the canyon pass, fifty feet wide and one hundred feet high. It was buttressed against the steep canyon walls, its central roof a series of pyramidal steppes. On either side of the temple, trees and vines clung upon a cliff that extended deep into the jungle to his right and left, like a fortress wall built by God. The man they sought, and the Breastplate, waited within that temple.
Young Elias crept to his side. He gripped the blunderbuss, careful to keep it aimed towards the ground. “Is it true, Father Salvatierra, what the stories say, that beyond this temple is the Garden of Eden? Perhaps the Breastplate will show us the way to
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